Uncle John's Band - Single and Album History

Single and Album History

Warner Bros. Records released "Uncle John's Band", backed with "New Speedway Boogie", as a single in 1970, but got limited airplay because of length issues. Garcia worked with Warners to cut it down, though he later called the mix "an atrocity." "I gave them instructions on how to properly edit it and they garbled it so completely," Garcia commented. The original album version ended up getting more air play than the revised Warner Bros. version.

In any case, the single reached only number 69 on the U.S. Pop Singles chart. Nevertheless it had a greater impact than its chart performance indicates, it did receive good airplay on progressive rock radio stations and others with looser playlists. At a time when the Grateful Dead were already an underground legend, "Uncle John's Band" (and to some degree its albummate "Casey Jones") was the first time many in the general rock audience actually heard the band's music.

Moreover, the song had an impact on the mainstream because of first using the word "goddamn" in the unedited single, which many radio stations played instead of the edited version; together with the reference to cocaine in "Casey Jones", the two songs made the band a "thorn in the side of Nixon that became a badge of honor to the masses."

The song is available as downloadable content for the video game Rock Band.

"Uncle John's Band" is one of the Grateful Dead's most frequently played tracks on classic rock radio.